I finally finished ordering all of my PC components today. Well, actually, I ordered my last parts yesterday, but I ordered the OS today. So, because I have nothing better to do and I want to make you feel jealous, I'm going to list all of the different parts that I got. I'll start with the basics.

Motherboard: ASUS P5N32-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core (the new Penryn dual-core processor)

GPU: EVGA 512-P3-N841-A3 GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface

RAM: 2x1 GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel + 2x1 GB of some garbage-looking HP RAM I got from James (hoping it actually works; if not, I'll just pick up two more sticks of the Corsair)

Power Supply: OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI ATX12V 700W

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

Optical Drive:  SAMSUNG Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe

I think that's everything. I'll just be putting these parts into my current Alienware Aurora chassis, and I'll take the parts that are currently in my Alienware to build a second machine, which means I need to buy a case for that.

I decided to go with Vista Home Premium 64-bit, mainly because of the fact that 32-bit can only support up to 3.2 GB of RAM.

I'll be sticking with my current sound system, which is some 5.1 Logitech system that came with my Alienware. It's a nice setup for how cheap it was, and then of course I have my 22'' Samsung 226BW monitor which I love. I'm really looking forward to getting this thing set up. I expect the parts will arrive around Thursday, but I probably won't have time to get it built until Friday or even Saturday. I have some gaming to do once I get it built: my graphics card comes with Crysis and I've had Unreal Tournament III sitting around for some time.

Speaking of gaming, I downloaded this Half-Life 2 mod that someone told me about called Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat. It's really cool. Pretty much, it's a hardcore military sim-type game. You play as either the USMC or Iraqi insurgents. There's no crosshair, health, or anything. There's not even really a HUD at all. You basically have to aim with your iron sights or scope, and it's ultra-realistic. It's kind of like Red Orchestra, which is a WWII sim, but in modern-day Iraq. You pretty much die in 1-2 shots. It takes A LOT of teamwork, and thankfully, since the mod's community is pretty small right now, there's a lot of cool people that play it. It hasn't been infested with ass clowns like CS or other mainstream mods. Anyways, I suggest you check it out.

That's all I have for now. 

I saw Cloverfield today. (Note: I'll try to keep out any spoilers, but you have been warned). I went into the movie with slightly low expectations, knowing that it wouldn't meet its hype. Fortunately, because I went in not expecting much, I came out pretty happy. The movie was decent. It wasn't amazing and lacked an original story and character development, but it was entertaining to say the least. Now that I saw the movie, I'm not at all surprised at how Cloverfield's antagonist was kept such a secret: simply because there isn't a secret. It's something that was entirely expected.

I thought the whole use of the hand camera thing might be annoying, but in fact, it wasn't really. It worked out well, and they used the gimmick nicely using flashbacks (because he accidentally recorded over an old tape). This provided some backstory, but nothing significant enough to make the movie good in terms of storyline. The simple fact is is that it's a monster movie--nothing more, nothing less. My suggestion to you (if you haven't seen it yet) is to do what I did and go in with slightly low expectations. A lot of people seemed disappointed with the ending, but honestly, without giving too much away, how else would it end? Giving it a sad ending or a happy ending, people would have been disappointed regardless. I think many people felt there wasn't enough closure, but I figure any more tacked on to the end would be pointless and just detract from the movie. God knows they'll make a prequel and a videogame for this movie.

 In something totally unrelated, I've been playing a ton of Call of Duty 4 on PC, and I must say, it's like 100x better on PC than on Xbox 360. It's better in pretty much every aspect. I've also been playing quite a bit of Team Fortress 2 on PC, which is like 200x better than its 360 counterpart. I've played a bit of Garry's Mod 10 lately too. They just updated it and now it includes a whole bunch of new stuff and it runs on the updated Source engine (from Orange Box).

The only Xbox 360 game that I've been playing on and off recently is Rock Band. With me being a big Oasis and Smashing Pumpkins fan, I'm looking forward to the downloadable content that was recently announced:

Week of Jan. 22: Oasis Pack (440 MS points/ $5.50)

• Don't Look Back in Anger (160 MS points/ $2)


• Live Forever (160 MS points/ $2)


• Wonderwall (160 MS Points / $2)

• Siva - Smashing Pumpkins (160 MS points/ $2)


• Working Man - Rush *Cover* (160 MS points/ $2)


• Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial) - Coheed and Cambria *Cover* (160 MS Points / $2)

According to the vice president of MTV Games, over 2.5 million Rock Band DLC tracks have been downloaded, and there are over 200 tracks in the pipeline for 2008.

I have ordered some of the parts for the new PC I will be building. So far, I have 4GB of RAM, a CD/DVD drive/burner and a 700W power supply. I'll probably be ordering the motherboard, video card , processor and hard drive over the course of the next couple weeks. I also will probably need to get another sound card as well, and I'll have to pick up Windows Vista Home Premium. The video card I'm getting comes with Crysis, so I'm looking forward to running that on high settings. Depending on the price difference, I may use EVGA's "step up" program to upgrade to the 9800 once it releases around March.

Anyways, that's all I have for now.